


I Now Pronounce You Man and Work

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, LITERALLY, M/M, Married to his work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:27:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/234903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John, I think you should know that I consider myself married to my work." If only there were some way of making it official...</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Now Pronounce You Man and Work

The door slam he can deal with. The careless thuds of expensive shoes on aged floorboards can also be tolerated. The singing, however… John Watson draws the line there.

When Sherlock Holmes comes home singing, something is up.

The yodelling starts faintly, but noticeable enough to lower John’s brush and raise his eyebrows. It’s not a tune he recognises – the melody sounds classical; the words seem incomprehensibly Italian – but presence of the aria alone makes him nauseous. What is it to be this time?

Another serial killer, perhaps. Hmmm, no, the tempo isn’t fast enough for that. John would lean towards the humiliation of a colleague but it would have to be on a spectacularly grand scale to warrant the detective’s vocal cords and there’s been nothing reported in the tabloids thus far…

Oh God, perhaps he’s killed Anderson.

Trying to suppress his terror at this new possibility, John drops his scourer into the suds and sets on extricating himself from his hands’ rubber confines. He doesn’t want Sherlock’s mind to go down the avenues his just did, knowing that whatever he could come up with, Sherlock’s will be _decidedly worse_. Also, he’s not too fond of having to do the dishes, anyway, let alone the frenzied scrubbing of a crime scene. He doesn’t want Sherlock to make _that_ connection either.

The man in question chooses the next moment to barge in, chin aloft and mouth held open in ear drum-endangering song.

“E non ho amato mai tanto la vita!” He warbles, spinning a neat three-sixty on his left heel before collapsing on the sofa in a dramatic, flailing (and seemingly a personal addition) chromatic descending run that sounds a lot like the ending of “Bolero”. Torvill and Dean is where John’s appreciation of classical music ends.

“So that was normal.” John responds to the display, finally pinging the gloves off his fingers and flopping them over the side of the sink. He proceeds over to the sofa to find Sherlock… _beaming_? “What are you so pleased about?”

Eyes closed in erroneous bliss and mouth frozen in a toothy grin, Sherlock merely extends his left hand out, palm down, to John’s face.

It takes the doctor eighteen seconds of staring at the appendage before he finally twigs.

“Fucking hell!” He proclaims, “You’ve gotten married!”

Sherlock’s beam stays fixed; it doesn’t even shift to a smug look or dirty ‘don’t state the obvious, John’ glare and that is somehow _terrifying_.

“You’ve gotten married…” John mutters, like repeating it might make it any less freakishly abnormal. The man who once claimed he’d rather be in Thatcher’s pants than wedlock, that he would die a (relative) bachelor and be (relatively) ridiculously unattainable his whole life… _married_? “To whom?”

There’s also the slight issue of his relationship with John. This probably constitutes cheating somewhat.

“I’ve already told you.” The grin finally drops and John feels only slightly more relieved. “Angelo’s, Northumberland Street, thirtieth of January, 11:48pm. ‘John, I think you should know that I consider myself married to my-’”

John stops him mid-quotation; he remembers.

“Married to your _work_? You can’t do that!”

“Yes I can. I’m Sherlock Holmes.”

“And that makes you above the law.”

Sherlock’s eyes snap open, “Yes, it does.”

There is a pause where the two men stare each other down for an eye-wateringly lengthy amount of time until John blinks and that seems to be the signal for Sherlock to straighten up, crack his joints and reach into his jacket pocket. Nestled in between long fingers, produced with a flourish out of the tailored material, is a rectangle of sturdy-looking paper.

“Proof that I can and I _have_.” Sherlock mutters as he extends the certificate out to John. The doctor takes it disbelievingly, flipping it over with his fingers as he delays the unfolding. To view the type is to submit to Sherlock and he doesn’t really want that. He’s perfectly content with disbelieving, thank you very much. “I thought you’d want to see.” Sherlock adds pointedly.

John grimaces down at the paper, “I do. I also really don’t.”

“I went to a church and saw a priest – a very _liberal_ priest – and I didn’t bribe or force or hurt anyone.” The detective insists like he can’t quite understand why John would ever have a problem with this. Like of _course_ his boyfriend should be okay with being greeted by a mysterious marriage certificate, who wouldn’t be? “Technically.”

Sherlock’s words seem to make John’s decision for him; he doesn’t want to hear another word about the damn thing before he-

>   
> _Certified copy of an entry of marriage._
> 
>  _Sherlock Holmes. 32. Bachelor. Consulting Detective. Baker Street._
> 
>  _Sherlock Holmes’ Work. 15. Booming. Difficult. Anywhere interesting._
> 
>  _Married in the Church of St. Monica._

John feels sick. “This can’t be real.”

“Why would I fake something like this?”

“I don’t know! To make a point? To make an example of the institution? For a joke? Perhaps you were _bored_ , Sherlock, I haven’t got a clue. But this isn’t funny.” He punctuates the final word with a jab at the paper; Sherlock’s hand shoots out and recaptures the certificate with almost supersonic speed. He looks up at John, inexplicably offended.

“I feel _hurt_ -” On this he swallows, almost choking away a sob, “-that you would degrade my union by suggesting that. I went into this with honourable intentions and I resent your mistrust!”

“Are you kidding me with this, Sherlock. You’ve gone and _married your work_.” He laughs, earning another murderous glance from the man sitting stroking the scrawl on his proof, “I suppose I should have seen this coming.” John suddenly wheels around, brandishing a pointed finger at the Consulting Detective. “You want me to ask you how you did it, don’t you? It’s no _fun_ for you, me just _accepting_ it. You want to recount it all to me in that smug voice and for me to marvel at your brilliance and go _Oh Sherlock, you’re so wonderful and far more intelligent than I will ever be_! So go on then.”

“Is that really how you think you talk.” Sherlock counters in response to the whiny, simpering, girly sort of voice that John just used to mimic himself. John’s glare is borrowed from the devil. “Fine, I shall tell you. I had help.”

“Did you now.” John’s barb comes out sounding a lot pettier than he had originally intended for it to be. He folds his arms, striding towards the coffee table and perching himself on one of the corners; he has a feeling this is going to be a prolonged and exaggerated retelling of events and so feels more comfortable with the weight on his arse rather than on his tired feet.

“Yes, I did. One cannot go into these things _gung ho_ , John.” Sherlock shifts himself into a more upright position on the sofa, castigating John with his gaze. “I needed some form of legal assistance. You remember Victor Trevor? I probably mentioned him once.”

John nods. “You called him a prick, as far as I can remember. Some guy from your Uni days?”

Sherlock appears to muse on this thought for a while. “Correct,” He eventually fills the silence with a contemplative affirmative, “he is a prick. Also a lawyer now, apparently. Well, he has his own office. And firm. Yes, blackmail is just frustratingly easy nowadays.”

“What?”

“It came to light that revealing to his peers the… _intimate_ details of our University friendship would damage his credibility somewhat. Now isn’t that just disgusting: society afraid of a little buggery. I’m very certain that a little buggery never hurt anyone.” His eyes flash with a self-deprecating knowingness, “In a manner of speaking. But anyway, Victor was more than happy to aid me in my quest.”

“I’m sure he was- this is sounding fantastically legal at the moment, Sherlock.”

“Oh, thank goodness; I was fearing I would not be able to breathe without your opinion.” Sherlock breezes on: “When I presented him with my idea we were immediately confronted with a barrier. This being that my work is… not exactly able to speak for itself. Victor assured me that I would need a spoken testimony from it for the marriage to be legal.”

“Rightly so. So how did you get it? Or did you not-”

“This account will proceed far more swiftly if you will endeavour to shut the fuck up, John. I know how much you are enjoying adding your little comments but I find them highly unnecessary.”

John swallows and says nothing.

“Thank you. After Victor’s announcement I had the idea – me alone, you understand, Victor didn’t help with this bit – to compile together statements from individuals whose prosecutions I had helped bring about. It wasn’t difficult to do; I merely had to break into the Yard’s archives and collect the tapes. Victor had audio editing software on his computer so after a little mp3 conversion I had my vows. You know: ‘I, Sherlock Holmes’ Work, take you…’ It was all nauseatingly simple.”

“And… the church… they accepted this?”

“We played it from my laptop.” Sherlock replies pointedly, sending John’s eyebrows up to the heavens. If he were a nineteenth-century gentleman, this would be about the point where he would utter "Great Scott!" in a disbelieving whisper. But he's John Watson, twenty-first-century man of action, so he instead swears loudly and clearly and _English_ ly.

"Bollocks." He proclaims. Sherlock looks him up and down as if John is a newly purchased lamp he is contemplating tucking in a corner of the flat and promptly forgetting about. John feels appropriately forsaken so elaborates on his sudden proclamation of genitalia: "I honestly can't believe anyone would agree to- hang on, let me see that certificate again?"

Sherlock extends a languid hand to John, scissoring his fingers in order to make the paper dance between them. The action tingles a distant recess of John’s memory but he swipes the feeling aside in order to concentrate on more pressing matters. The marriage certificate is grasped, scanned with suspicious eyes, then lowered away from John’s face.

“Who’s Godfrey Norton?”

The detective shrugs elaborately, “No idea.”

“But… he’s your witness- do you even _know him_?”

“Not to my knowledge. He knew of me, though; did a lot of smiling and talking about ‘returning the favour’. I did not have the slightest clue as to what he was _harping on about_ but he agreed to oversee the marriage so I tolerated him. It was a necessity.”

“ _Sherlock_ ,” John’s speech crumples under laughter but he’s not quite sure why, “this _cannot_ be legal.”

Sherlock makes another violent sort of wave as he gazes up at his partner, “If imbeciles are allowed to marry their pets then I neglect to see how this is different. And, besides, this marriage stands more of a chance of lasting than any _conventional_ marriage would.”

John, up to this point almost imperceptively humming with frustration, immediately falls silent. He is a radio tuned to no particular channel, only emitting static until the aggravated guest can take no more and pulls out the cable with a malicious and pointed tug.

“Do you honestly believe that?” He checks after a silence that Sherlock doesn’t notice; the man is concentrating on wiggling his toes in some sort of pattern that John can’t understand and won’t dedicate his patience to deciphering. The detective turns his head like a clockwork toy recently rewound, his features set in deep thought.

“Of course. You are perfectly aware of my stance on matrimony, John.”

“Well, I thought I was.” John swings his right leg in an unconscious punctuation to his next utterance, “Until today.”

“What do you mean ‘until today’? Nothing has changed today.”

“Yes, today you married your work and not me!” John suddenly exclaims, rising to his feet without consideration for his next movement, or just how standing up is going to aid his point. He feels exposed and almost sits back down again but isn’t sure he’d be able to take the minor mortification that would inevitably accompany the gesture. Instead he spreads his arms and turns to head back towards the sink.

"You never asked me to marry you." Sherlock counters from the sofa, confusion seeping into his normally confident tone.

John halts his stride, half turning back to catch his partner in his gaze, "You _told me not to_."

"Exactly. So I neglect to see what the issue is. I told you from the beginning my work is and always will be my first priority. You are simply…” Sherlock smirks, eyes alighting with a twisted satisfaction as they move up towards the ceiling, “my mistress.”

“Oh! Great! Wonderful!”

John is forcing rubber gloves onto his hands with a brutality normally reserved for the restraint of criminals. Sherlock, jerked out of his revelry by his flatmate’s proclamation, watches John wrestle with the flapping green hands through narrowed eyes. He waits for breathing to slow, a heart rate to decline, and is disappointed.

“…I’m sensing some animosity here.” He eventually ventures in his own Sherlock Holmes brand of tact.

“Are you? You’ve really excelled yourself this time with your deduction skills – just… fantastic. Well done.”

John, unable to power the gloves into submission, abandons the monstrosities with a dramatic snap of them against the countertop and plunges his hands into the lukewarm, filthy water, grasping around for submerged pieces of cutlery. It never ceases to amaze John, Sherlock’s consistent laziness: of course he would rather discard the knives and forks into the sink rather than unhinge the heavy door of the dishwasher, God _forbid_.

Ask John Watson at this point quite why he had, close to a year ago now, fallen into the arms of his Consulting Detective and agreed amidst frantic kisses to enter into the Sherlock Holmes equivalent of a relationship, it is very likely that John Watson will punch you in the face. Fairy liquid suds and all.

In fact, remind John Watson that only a fortnight ago he had lingered just a little too long outside Goldsmith’s in town, mind far away in a parallel universe where “I do” wasn’t “Over my dead body”, and it is very likely that you won’t actually live to see John Watson punch you in the face with his fairy liquid fist.

Within the walls of 221B Baker Street, the subject of marriage is treated rather like the infamous Fincher movie. It had emerged almost on a whim; John had been tasked with some inane chore or other that the detective had point-blank refused to undertake, Sherlock had been sitting on the sofa (again – John feels that when the man finally dies they’ll have to nail a plaque into the leather or something). “If you ever get the urge to propose to me,” Sherlock had begun, moving his index fingers away from and towards his eyes in rapid movements for some experiment or other that honestly looked nonsensical, “please don’t. Thank you.”

That had seemed like that. John, good old adaptable John Watson, had accepted the irrationality as Gospel and adjusted his life to suit this new piece of information. At the time he had no plans to do anything of the sort; the idea seemed like a distant trial for people over thirty who had normal lives perfectly free of arch-enemies and bi-weekly murder attempts. He’d been with Sherlock platonically for almost a year, romantically for all of four weeks. Those were the sort of rash decisions his sister was wont to make and John was not keen to emulate his older sibling in that respect.

Sherlock never gave him a reason for his aversion to marriage and John never asked for one. That was generally how the world worked for the Holmes and Watson duo of 221B.

Now the Consulting Detective is beginning to notice a glitch in his previously flawless system.

“But you- are you… is that what this is all about?” He calls over to the John still groping for forks in the murky water, straightening up and swinging his legs over the edge of the sofa to plant his feet solidly on the wooden floor. The man in question looks up and over to his partner, stilling his movements slightly but not ceasing them.

“All- what do you mean: ‘that’?” He snaps, his confusion irritating him. It works better to understand around Sherlock Holmes, it staves off barbed comments and attempts on his intelligence. The conversation that had begun in a light-hearted manner has now descended into poignancy and he’s not sure how comfortable he is with that.

Sherlock seems unable to decide on how to pitch his next utterance. It begins with force, a retort, but finishes as a mumble:

“Do you honestly think just by marrying my work I care about you any less?”

“Normally when someone marries someone else, it generally means they don’t love you.” John counters with unbecoming sarcasm. It’s an addition that has been growing slowly more noticeable as the doctor spends more time with his Consulting Detective; Sherlock won’t think that he’s a bad influence, he just won’t. It’s awful enough to see his foibles reflected back through softer, gentler eyes – knowing that he is the cause could ruin a lesser man and he won’t take the chance on himself.

“Of course I love you, John. You know that. Don’t make me repeat it-”

“Why should I not? Why are you so incapable of telling me that? I’m supposed to just _deduce_ it, am I? This isn’t fucking fair – you knew I already have this complex and you went and did this so what the hell am I meant to think.” John spits; saliva sprays through his lips at the plosives and the air around him seems to cringe away at the gutturals. Sherlock isn’t sure he’s ever seen John this angry – and he could categorise all the different times he’s ever antagonised his lover, not that it would ever do him any good – or this upset; the thought is vaguely terrifying. Almost like viewing the death of a favourite fictional character and being forced to comprehend functioning without this being that never existed in the first place, it seems distant but that doesn’t make it any _easier_.

“What did I tell you, John, the day we met?” Sherlock speaks instead of decaying inside like he feels he ought to and might just, given the time and the opportunity for self-indulgence. One day he’ll chastise John for making him so vulnerable, so _bloody_ perceptive to emotions when he was honestly fine in his blinkered old ways, one day he’ll do it and he’ll do it with conviction, but not today.

John shrugs, simultaneously lifting his hands out of the water to add extra disregard to the gesture, “You told me a lot of things.” He shakes the suds off them; bubbles float to the floor the way Sherlock assumes clouds would if gravity stopped for a day.

“‘I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other’.” The detective quotes himself with an almost robotic stoicism; word for word, John assumes.

“You know, it’s really annoying when you do that.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. But do you remember what you said in response?”

It’s at this point where Sherlock assumes he gets to his feet, for he’s standing when John replies with his head cast down in either anger or shame, he can’t tell. He’s not sure when his movements began to decline in lucidity but deduces it was probably when… _John_ …

That man needs to stop doing this to him. Being in _love_ needs to stop doing this to him.

“No. _Forgive me_.” Comes John’s short reply, an acidic antidote to the fact that Sherlock Holmes is walking towards him with that look on his face and his arms gently spread in such a inconspicuous way that only John can understand and _know_ , the bastard.

Sherlock smiles reminiscently, “You didn’t say anything. And that, John, is what makes you wonderful: your tolerance. I put you through hell and yet you still stay – why?”

It’s evident that the doctor longs to retort something back, continue his animosity, but instead he stops. Pauses. Thinks. Then it suddenly becomes really obvious and more than a little irritating.

“ _Because I love you_ , yes, is this your point?”

“No. Well, yes, partly. My point is: you knew the worst about me then. So know the truly despicable about me now: I have absolutely no morals. None. Therefore I have no issue whatsoever with committing adultery. All the time. Especially if my partner in infidelity is a man I just happen to be very much in love with. Do you have an issue with adultery, John?”

And all through saying this the smile grows wider in a dubiously consensual manner that the couple – especially John – are both familiar with. It’s the kind of submission to the inevitable, to fate, if either of them were to believe in such preposterous ideals. Sherlock and John will fight and curse and use words to try and break each other but always knowing inside that the real way to send barriers crashing down is by what they do best. So Sherlock infuriates and John tolerates, all the time with the knowing smile that means that they’d never have it any other way.

The next piece of speech to come out of Doctor Watson’s mouth is said with the deathly seriousness that, somehow, only when spoken by John, will always convey absolute ridicule to Sherlock Holmes:

“I’m afraid I do, yes.”

“I spoke to her about it, she says it’s fine. Open relationship.” Sherlock explains through a smirk. They’re barely feet away now and this the detective will blame on his dulled synapses; those are most definitely John’s fault but for now he’ll forgive him that, he’ll forgive him anything. Here is a man who just accepted the ridiculous; he deserves far more than Sherlock’s munificence.

“You know what? Suddenly I feel a lot more liberal.” This Ghandi-like figure speaks with a mouth that quirks with amused annoyance and eyes that shine with joy, giving him away.

“I tend to do that to people.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t.”

“You’re right, I don’t.”

Hands grasp around the lapels of Sherlock’s suit jacket and pull the detective close, close enough for their lips to brush and the apology to be conveyed through the deepening of a kiss neither of them is fully sure they deserve. To heck with who deserves what. John Watson has lived with Sherlock Holmes long enough to know that he should just take what he wants and bugger the consequences. If he wants to forgive him just like that, just like an insane man would, he bloody well will and take comfort in the fact there aren’t any deities to judge him.

Sherlock would make some sarky comment about just wanting a snog but as his hands slide round the waist of his doctor and he feels the softness of John’s tongue probing into his waiting mouth, it’s more than that and he knows it. It’s the _yes, you’ve gotten away with this one, but if you dare do that to me again in a hurry then you will be one sorry Consulting Detective_. You utter, utter bastard. Why do I love you so much?

Why does the Earth go round the sun? Why is the square of the hypotenuse equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides?

Fucking _science_.

Sherlock Holmes breaks the kiss due to matters of air intake rather than anything to do with him not wanting to just throw John down on the sofa and ravish him with sorry sex. When he opens his eyes and beholds the man in front of him it is enough for both of them to contemplate converting to a form of religion, anything, just something that will explain how perfect this sight is. The detective laughs at his own soppiness; John joins in with the chuckles and Sherlock pulls him close again, resting his head on his shoulder – once again for practical reasons, you understand. Not at all because he just likes it.

“Oooh, I feel rather naughty. Ink is barely even _dry_ , look at us.” He announces, taking advantage of the felicity. He isn’t able to see but he’s ninety-nine percent certain that John just rolled his eyes; he’s a Consulting Detective, don’t you know.

“I’m pretty sure this is probably the most twisted thing you’ve ever done. Gotten off on cheating on your ‘work’, for God’s sake.”

Sherlock chuckles again, pulling John ever closer, “And yet _biology_ is telling me you’re ‘getting off’ on this, too.”

“Oh, fuck off.” John giggles in response. Now his hands are batting at his lover in a show of faux annoyance and the more he tries to extricate himself from the embrace the more they both know he’d much rather stay in it for, ooh, about forever.

It’s this that Sherlock then makes impossible on purpose. He disentangles himself from John’s deceptively strong arms and, placing a quick and patronising kiss on the doctor’s forehead, begins to swish around the room looking busy. John gapes at him.

“No, Sherlock, I was j-”

Sherlock raises his phone as if in answer. “Lestrade is about to text me about a mass grave they’ve just found somewhere near New Cross. Students, mmmm. Must dash. Don’t wait up.”

There’s a pause where they exchange smiles and small “hm”s of contentment. John folds his arms to continue the charade, watching Sherlock layer on his winter essentials with amused fury. It appears much like a dance to him: the coat that seems to splay out with a mind of its own; the scarf with all its folds and manipulations that are probably simple but Sherlock makes them look wonderfully elaborate; the gloves that will be permanently fascinating to John just for the myriad of dirty images they project in his mind. Black leather. Huh. One day he’ll inform Sherlock- actually, forget it; the man probably already knows. John cannot wait for the day that their thoughts will coalesce and they’ll act on it.

A phone buzzes. Sherlock’s gaze flies to John along with a pointed raise of his eyebrows and quirk of the device in his gloved hand. Snatching John’s wallet from the side he heads for the door in the purposeful strides his lover has learnt to collocate with cases. He’ll leave him to his excitement; he’s in his element, don’t impede him.

He never would.

Just as he reaches the staircase Sherlock suddenly pauses as if struck by an idea. He turns, a wicked grin turning the corners of his mouth up, “Don’t know why you’re looking so grumpy. This _is_ my honeymoon, after all.”

John won’t despair, he resolves as he observes the man’s dancing descent down the stairs. Sherlock still owes _someone_ a wedding night.

\--


End file.
